Today, Beth Madison shares some things she’d change if she could redo her years of graduate school and early professorship. Read Beth’s earlier reflections “Not What I’d Planned” and “Stories for Life.” [Read more…] about If I Had to Do It Again: the Graduate School and Early Professor Years Edition (Scholar’s Compass)
Engaging the University
Engaging the whole university for Christ
Are we going to treat the campus as a whole as our mission field?
What if Christ really, truly engaged the whole university? This is a great, bold and magnificent vision. May we be worthy of it. — Terence C. Halliday
To continue the train of thought inspired by NY Times: Colleges and Evangelicals Collide on Bias Policy and Book Review: The Global Diffusion of Evangelicalism, let’s “get back to basics” and give attention to Terence C. Halliday‘s Engaging the whole university for Christ. As you may know, Terence is a specialist in globalization and law. The below presentation was given at a regional International Fellowship of Evangelical Students (IFES) conference in Ghana and I find it inspirational with regard to our labors as part of not only InterVarsity-USA, but also the larger IFES movement.
Engaging the whole university for Christ from IFES World. [Read more…] about Engaging the whole university for Christ
Christian Engagement in the Renewing of Higher Education
Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,
On this Lord’s day may you find encouragement in Santa Ono’s presentation on Christian Engagement in the Renewing of Higher Education (1:48:45). May you be inspired as the President of the U. of Cincinnati[1] gives testimony to how his life has been and continues to be shaped by his relationship with God and the people of God (including members of InterVarsity Christian Fellowship) in relationship to the wider culture — even in the “small city” of the university and the intricacies of family dynamics.
[Read more…] about Christian Engagement in the Renewing of Higher Education
Engaging the University
Ready to get serious about Engaging the University? Then let’s return to Vinoth Ramachandra, who serves on the International Fellowship of Evangelical Students (IFES) Senior Leadership Team as Secretary for Dialogue & Social Engagement.
Engaging the University: Vinoth Ramachandra from IFES World.
What does Engaging the University look like on your campus? How can dialogical ministry be more fully developed on your campus? How can the Emerging Scholars Network assist you in incarnational ministry? Please let me know of particular online resources which can be of assistance (encouragement, equipping, academic mentoring/networking, discerning the Presence of Christ).
Note: You may remember that in Fall 2013 we gave significant attention to Ramachandra’s 2012 Henry Martyn Lectures.
A Dialogical Campus Ministry
“I’m still waiting to read a scientific paper that gives a biological explanation of the emergence of biological science among us human beings, also a naturalist account of what motivates people to become evolutionary psychologists and why others are impressed by their explanations.” — A taste of the pointed wit which draws one into Part 3 of Vinoth Ramachandra‘s Engaging the University (22:04). As you my remember from Part 2, the recording cut off as he began a “defense of the human.” Ramachandra focuses on resisting the biological reductionism which combines neurological imaging of the human brain with “the popular pseudoscience of evolutionary psychology.”
Biological reductionism requires much more consideration than that given to it by Ramachandra. What better way than a dialogic university ministry, i.e., “a ministry which takes the university seriously on its own terms”? But can we as members of the campus community truly take up Ramachandra’s challenge to embrace university ministry as “a distinctive calling, not simply an extension or parallel of church based ministries”? Can we support a ministry which “listens as well as speaks . . . seeks to stimulate respectful conversations both within and across academic disciplines, and with Christians and non-Christians alike”? [Read more…] about A Dialogical Campus Ministry